I'm With You
by she.a.punk
Summary: "And I don't care if you don't like it. I don't care if you appreciate it. But I sure as hell don't regret it." Tag to "Rules of the Game" because the show broke me last night and that's not nice. Harvey/Donna, friendship or romance up to you...


**A/N:** Angst welled up inside me after watching Harvey last episode and I needed an outlet. **SPOILERS** for**_ Rules of the Game_** and the promo for the next Ep.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I dont own _Suits_ or _Avril Lavigne_

Donna was waiting for him when he got back to his condo that night (morning).

He wanted a shower. He needed a shave (he hadn't spent that many consecutive hours at the office since before being made partner). But what he did was get himself a drink.

Well, really, Donna got him a drink. It was waiting for him on the coffee table in front of his favorite seat on the couch. She was sitting at the far end, hair pulled back in one of the hair ties he sometimes found lying around his place and wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants he'd come to think of as _hers_ (their relationship was purely professional but taking work home had meant bringing Donna along often enough that she needed something to change into and keeping _her_ things at _his_ place had always fallen firmly into the 'not crossing that line' area).

She, too, was nursing a scotch, and watched him with careful eyes when he sat down beside her, disposing of his tie and taking a few cathartic sips of the amber liquid.

"Tell me." He said, his voice rough from alcohol or emotion, she couldn't tell.

"You were as close to losing it as I've ever seen you today." She began, her own voice low. She'd enjoyed seeing Harvey lay into Louis, but the haunted look on his face as he did so had left an unpleasant taste in her mouth.

She contemplated her drink and folded her feet beneath her, shifting away from the memory.

"You making excuses?" Harvey challenged, looking at her for the first time. It was a testament to his mood that he said it at all. He knew Donna would never give him any and she knew Harvey would never accept them.

But Donna wasn't going to let him pick a fight tonight. Not over something stupid like that.

"Jessica said Cameron was going to sell you out."

He didn't ask how she knew. Donna always knew everything he did and more. It was one of her strengths, and therefore one of his as well.

"And you believe her?"

Donna's eyes flashed up to him at that. He was hurt too then. He wouldn't lash out at Jessica unless he was hurt _as well as_ angry.

"Yes I do." She stated and watched his face darken. He reached forward for the bottle of scotch on the table.

"And so do you."

He stuttered slightly in pouring but then continued. A double.

He took a sip and she waited.

"He made a new deal," he paused, but Donna didn't react. "New evidence came to light and he made a new deal."

He searched her face for an answer to the question he didn't dare ask. Donna was unreadable to many. Terrifying to most. But to Harvey, she was just Donna.

And he saw right through her.

"You had no right." he said, his voice dark and his tone betrayed. He'd never looked at her like that before.

"I had every right." She shot back, suddenly the impassive, unreadable mask was gone, like a spider pattern in glass that gives way at the slightest push. Her eyes turned glassy and her voice hardened. "I wasn't going to let him take you down."

"I could've handled it."

"You would have testified against him to avoid perjuring yourself and he knew it Harvey. That's why he made the deal he did. The one that throws you under the bus _hes_ driving. The one that gets you disbarred. The one where you lose everything you've ever worked for. I wasn't going to let him do that to you."

He looked away, his jaw set and clenching beneath his skin.

She swallowed and took a breath looking down at her drink and then back again. "And I don't care if you don't like it. I don't care if you appreciate it. But I sure as hell don't regret it."

"You'll have to testify in my place." He shook his head and turned toward her. "They'll put you on that stand and rip you apart and it wont be part of a script for a mock trial with some associate who's just learning how to play. It'll be a pit bull and it'll be real and there wont be a damn thing I can do about it."

Donna wasn't as surprised as she thought she would be to see tears standing in his eyes. Harvey was loyal to a fault and fiercely protective of what he considered his (and Donna always had been). He reminded her of one of the knights of the round table; not so much concerned with right and wrong as what was honorable and what wasn't. They were qualities she'd always admired about him, and things that kept him a puppy in so many ways, even after all these years.

"He cheated Harvey," was all she said. Quietly, hoping he wouldn't hear how broken her voice was. It still took Harvey's breath away, "but you never have."

She shrugged, a few big teardrops falling from her lashes. "I'd take a bullet for you Harvey," his face softened like he wanted to protest, but she cut him off, "and I'll take this too."

They stared at one another for a long time after that, Donna with a small smile of quiet acceptance on her lips. Harvey with a look of awe that someone, anyone, would be willing to be that loyal to _him_.

Finally, Donna sat forward to put her glass on the table and scooted over, closing the distance between them. She put on a brave smile and reached up to his neck, bending her head and, slowly he bent his until their foreheads touched.

"I put an innocent kid in jail." he whispered suddenly, nearly too soft to hear. Donna held back a sob because God help her he sounded so _crushed_.

She took a deep breath, bringing her hands to either side of his face.

"So make it right."

Minutely, he nodded, "I intend to."

She smiled and pulled back, looking him in the eyes.

"And I'll be with you. Every step of the way."

A smirk showed on his lips, hardly a shadow of his usual cocky grin.

"Nothing new there."

No. There certainly wasn't.

END


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